


red threads

by Serenity_Ribbon



Category: Naruto
Genre: Arranged Marriage, F/M, Hair Brushing, Past Character Death, past Senju Hashirama/Uzumaki Mito - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 03:08:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29253480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serenity_Ribbon/pseuds/Serenity_Ribbon
Summary: Tobirama had visited her, the night after Hashirama died. Knelt before her and with the same bluntness that he’d always had, much to Hashirama’s dismay, said, “I will find a way, if you don’t want to marry me.”They’d learnt quickly on that first trip that neither of them appreciated platitudes or half truths. “I’d rather be married to you than to anyone else.”
Relationships: Senju Tobirama/Uzumaki Mito
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 6





	red threads

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fencesit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fencesit/gifts).



Tobirama works late nights, and Mito would think it a deliberate attempt to avoid their bed if not for the fact that he’d had the same habit in the months he’d lived in her house after her marriage. Her first marriage. Hashirama’s memory burns like a knife in her heart. For all that they hadn’t loved each other - his heart had only ever been for the person who betrayed him - they had formed a companionship, an alliance. She’d been his first advisor and comforted him in hard decisions, and Tobirama had shot her many cold glares over the years when her advice had been taken over his.

In all the ways that mattered, they’d both started losing him after the Valley of the End. Sometimes she cursed his too-big heart and his endless ability to love, as the years drew on and his cheerful nature became more and more an act.

Throughout it all, Tobirama had been beside her, often more than her husband was. He had led the party that fetched her from Uzushiogakure. At first she had felt slighted, as if she wasn’t a ninja in her own right, but as she had seen the destruction the clans of the Fire Nation had wrought upon their land she had seen the sense in it. Tobirama had treated her like a daimyo's daughter until the night they were ambushed by the Inuzuka.

Mito had winced when the Senju had included a clause in the contract that had specified that if her spouse predeceased her she was to marry his next closest relative. Butsuma was canny, she’d give him that. Even if it had been peacetime, it was likely she would have far outlived Hashirama.

With the Nine Tails burning inside her and the coming of the war, it became a certainty.

Tobirama had visited her, the night after Hashirama died. Knelt before her and with the same bluntness that he’d always had (much to Hashirama’s dismay) said, “I will find a way, if you don’t want to marry me.”

They’d learnt quickly on that first trip that neither of them appreciated platitudes or half truths. She’d replied, “I’d rather be married to you than to anyone else.”

They were married in a ceremony that was more like a battlefield wedding than the pomp and ceremony of her first. Tobirama had been as cold as she’d ever seen him, right up until the kiss. Then, the tenderness of his lips on hers had been a surprise.

Now, two months later, Mito sighs, kicks off the covers and goes to see what her husband is up to this time.

She slides open the door to his office near-silently. The light reflects off of Tobirama’s silver hair, his head bent over a scroll, an ink brush in his hand, carefully writing out a sealing scroll of some kind, though it seemed to have significant modifications in the formula. It is the first time that she has seen him experiment in many weeks. Normally, these days, it is the hard work of a Hokage that keeps him from their bed. Deliberately making her footsteps audible, Mito steps into the path of the candle, throwing a shadow over him. Tobirama looks up blearily as she kneels beside him. Her knees aren’t what they once were, but she still sinks onto her heels gracefully, and waits, studying the strokes until he sets down the brush.

“You’re trying to make the seal last longer?” she asks, curious, “Isn’t that a waste of chakra?”

“Not if it’s going to contain ninjutsu.” he replies.

The degradation of ninjutsu scrolls is a problem on the front lines, she knows. Scrolls can only be prepared in advance of planned confrontations, but in cases of ambush…

They’ve been losing more and more ninja, skilled ninja, to ambushes recently. She sees the weight on Tobirama’s shoulders more and more as this war drags on. This village had never been either of their dreams, but she wonders if, beyond the senseless loss of death, he fears the possible loss of his brother’s greatest legacy.

“What about if you place this symbol here?” she says, motioning with the wrong end of the brush. Tobirama places his hand on her head as she begins explaining her idea of strengthening the seal matrix, stroking down the length of her hair. She had often caught her looking at it as she had arranged it in her early years with the Senju, but now that him touching it is considered appropriate he is near fascinated with it. She has taken to only plaiting it back once he comes to bed, or if she is certain he won't. He lets out a yawn, noticing it too late to stifle it. He is very tired, then.

She places the brush back on his desk and leads him back to their bed.

* * *

In the cool light of dawn the next morning, she lays out her pins, senbon and the explosive tags she has taken to wearing since the outbreak of war, then turns and places her hairbrush in Tobirama’s hands. She turns back to the mirror, straightening her spine. “I’m sure you’ve brushed hair before, despite the state of yours.”

He takes the end of a section of her hair, closest to the front of her face and brushes it out, moving upwards slowly and then to the next section. He handles it with the same care she’s seen him handle weapons with. Somewhere around the middle he breaks the silence. “I’ve always wanted hair like yours or Hashirama’s. I tried to grow mine out once and it looked like I was related to Madara.”

Mito tries to imagine that for a moment and then breaks into laughter. Tobirama returns to brushing, a small smile on his lips. The air between them feels easier than it has since the wedding, when Tobirama kissed her and then pulled away, his face turning into that impenetrable mask he wore in battle.

She carefully guides him through the process of pinning her hair up. This he is less experienced with, her hands on his thin, cold ones as she shows him how to place each pin, and then the senbon, a little flatter and wider than most, small characters etched into the flat sections.

“To make them cut through the air easier,” she says as Tobirama carefully examines the seal.

“I haven’t seen a seal on something so small before.”

“Your Flying Thunder God made me think of it. You can’t get very complex seals out of this level of miniaturization, but I don’t need to move quickly, the senbon needs to.”

“Does poison interact with the seal?” he asks, running one finger repeatedly over the long side of the needle.

Mito thinks for a second, “I haven’t tried that. I can’t think why it would, but it isn’t the strongest seal.”

“Try it. I’d like to see if it works.” He places the senbon he was fiddling with in her right bun, his fingers lingering on her hair. She can feel him swallow, and then slide his fingers down her cheek.

She stands, swiftly turning to face him. They are nearly of a height and she reaches for his hand and carefully places it back on her cheek. “Well?”

Tobirama is closer to her than he has been since the wedding, and Mito thinks she understands why, now. Understands why he had pulled away from her. She leans up and kisses him. It is not the quick, perfunctory kiss expected of a marriage such as theirs. He kisses back, wrapping his arms around her, embracing her with an unexpected warmth.


End file.
